


More Than a Million

by Pseudthisyafucks (collettephinz)



Category: Markipler - Fandom, Youtube - RPF
Genre: Alternature Universe - University, F/M, coffee and pets, daily life, dogs don't deserve death, even more hipster song choice, hipster guitar play, literally just noticed the word university is in university oh my god, losing a dog is hard, nice guy Mark, not a song fic, nothing graphic just sad, sad dog stuff :(, subtle flirtation, uni can suck but man it's great, unless i don't know what flirting actually is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 11:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12769689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collettephinz/pseuds/Pseudthisyafucks
Summary: Whenever Mark played in public, he kept a black sharpie tucked away in his back pocket. And if anyone wanted to repay him for the music he played, he asked them to draw a little something on his guitar, or write their name, or even put a small heart. It was a reminder to Mark of all the good he could do for a few people with just a simple thing. He treasured his guitar and the collage of names and doodles and hearts that adorned it. He would spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks throughout his years of studying, but none of them would ever carry the same amount of worth as this guitar with all of its marks.





	More Than a Million

**Author's Note:**

> i don't usually write straight stuff cause i was born to sail the seven seas on my ships, but a lovely person on tumblr asked for something nice and romantic so i wrote this for them :)
> 
> the Jack referred to in here is actually my Jack :P this dude i know from uni who really did just sit on the floor and build robots out of paperclips. he was a cool guy and got me to play the bass. he was also really good at card games and had the most glorious beard.
> 
> and the story about the dog is 100% me, down to the dog's name. i just couldn't come up with a better reason to cry in public than this. it was aaaaaawful.
> 
> [The song Mark played](https://soundcloud.com/iameden/wake-up)

Mark’s day had gone terribly.

He’d woken up with his roommate’s alarm screaming in his ear two hours before he actually needed to get up. Their small toaster had finally decided it had no life left in its circuits and had stolen the last of Mark’s Poptarts. The coffee machine in the mess hall had broken down, the hall was out of scrambled eggs for a good thirty minutes, and he accidentally stepped on a service dog’s tail. _A service dog’s tail._ Mark had wanted nothing more than to curl up and die at that point, but he had classes to attend, and names to take, people to punch in the face because he was a fucking beast. 

Except his favorite treadmill in the gym near his dorm had broken down this morning after he’d taken three steps on it, so maybe he’d just punch himself in the face and consider that working out really wasn’t helping him lose any weight. 

All of his classes went wrong. He’d forgotten his homework for his Medical Imaging course, because his professor was a dinosaur and didn’t accept any work online. He’d forgotten about a quiz in his elective course, and honestly, it just didn’t seem fair that a philosophy course could act so negatively against his GPA when he was in school to become a fucking Engineer. What Engineer would be good at philosophy? Aside from an absolutely shitty one. One that spent his or her time ruminating over pointless things like what defines the soul and how god can never consist of the three-Os at the same time. Omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent. The three could not coexist. 

Mark actually liked the course when it wasn’t pulling down his GPA like a wet sock. It was hard to like something that was effectively ruining your chances at maintaining your spot on the Dean’s list. It wasn’t like the course was hard, but it wasn’t easy to study for one top of everything else. Add to the fact that half of the class thought so highly of themselves that the room was a good fifteen degrees warmer than it should’ve been made for a terrible hour-long lecture that was only lengthened by jackass boys and girls repeating whatever the teacher had just said in a different way to make themselves seem smarter. Listening to these jerks just added to the frustration Mark felt with his day. One more class before his hour break, though. Just one more. 

A class that was cancelled without warning. He waited outside the door for a good twenty minutes before having the thought to check his student email and see the non-apologetic notification his professor had sent them all. Mark had almost thrown his phone. What a fucking dick head. There was only one thing he could do to fix his day, so he went back to his dorm to grab what he needed.

Lugging his guitar around campus wasn’t something Mark really enjoyed, but the payoff of sitting in the soft green grass of the center of campus with the guitar in his lap and no one else around always seemed like a good enough payoff. The campus center was especially quiet now that he was practicing in the middle of a class period. Everyone else would be either eating or learning. There was one boy across the grass lounging in a plastic hammock, and another girl sitting with her back to a tree about twenty yards away. That was it. 

Mark sat down on a bench and opened up his guitar case, smiling proudly at all of the drawings across the light wood. 

He had this thing he liked to do. Playing guitar on a college campus almost always drew attention from your average hipster/stoner/art student, and those students were always just so supportive and appreciative and basically overjoyed that Mark would share his “art” with them. Those were their words, not his. And since these kids were usually really adamant on quid pro quo, they’d always ask if they could get him coffee or draw him something or share a blunt in return. Mark had, at first, always said no, until he’d seen this thing online and gotten an idea.

Now, whenever Mark played in public, he kept a black sharpie tucked away in his back pocket. And if anyone wanted to repay him for the music he played, he asked them to draw a little something on his guitar, or write their name, or even put a small heart. It was a reminder to Mark of all the good he could do for a few people with just a simple thing. He treasured his guitar and the collage of names and doodles and hearts that adorned it. He would spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks throughout his years of studying, but none of them would ever carry the same amount of worth as this guitar with all of its marks. 

He held the guitar lovingly in his lap, gently wrapping his fingers around the neck, and then started to play. Something soft and simple— he didn’t have anything in particular in mind. The calluses on his fingertips had long ago taken away the discomfort of the sharp strings, and his thumbnail was the only nail he didn’t bite so he wouldn’t need a pick to pluck out his tunes. Mark shut his eyes and leaned back, soaking in the sun with the music. All the stress of his day melted away. His roommate could burn all of his clothes, and Mark would be fine with it, in this moment. The sky could come crashing down, the world could go up in flames. None of it would matter with this guitar in his hand and the reminders of the people he’d helped.

Maybe he held his guitar in an overtly romantic light. It wasn’t hurting anyone, though, and it was definitely helping him. He kept plucking away at the strings, humming along to the music he made up as he aimlessly worked his way through chords that always sounded good when paired together. His music was quiet and unintrusive. The guy across the way was still sleeping peacefully, and the girl…

The girl was crying. 

Shit.

Mark was out of his seat and across the grass before he even knew it. He couldn’t stand watching people suffer. He would never be the person to turn the other way. Mark had gone through enough of his own shit to know that he’d want someone to reach out if they saw him hurting, regardless of who they were. He’d wanted to know he wasn’t alone. 

Mark approached her cautiously, his heart twisting at the sound of her quiet sobs. Her face was buried in his hands, her book bag lying beside her. The contents were slipping out, and Mark could gleam from the titles of the textbooks that she was some sort of films study student. He didn’t see anything to explain her tears, though. Mark paused, before gently clearing his throat to alert her to his presence. The girl looked up and flinched when she saw him, but only out of surprise. Mark was a little blown away by her bright her eyes were. 

“Uh, hi?” she said, her voice distorted by her stuffy nose. She sniffed. “Can I help you?”

Mark weighed his options. He normally would’ve introduced himself or something, but people these days could be stubborn to comfort simply out of a desire to deny themselves any sort of happiness in an attempt to make themselves seem stronger. He knew that if he tried to open up with anything mundane, he’d just end up getting turned away. So Mark sat down a few feet from her, far enough away to keep her from feeling cornered, but close enough for her to know she had his attention. He positioned the guitar back in his lap and started to play.

It was a new song, one he’d learned only a few weeks ago. It wasn’t really all that happy, but no one listened to happy music when they were sad. He sang the lyrics softly, letting his voice carry over the words like they were part of the chords he played. He put most of his attention on the guitar, watching his fingers to make sure he didn’t mess up, but he could see her a little, too. She sat up and watched him more intently. The tears stopped as the distraction took root in her brain. 

She was actually kinda lovely. Mark wasn’t sure if her blond hair was natural, but it looked good either way. She was a subtle kind of pretty, nothing like the girls that would walk around campus with their heads high and noses in the air. He liked the way her lashes looked against her fair skin and wondered if she had any friends she could reach out to. He wondered why she’d been crying.

He finished the song with little grandeur, letting the final chord and lyric fade away into the warm air. “You’re so much better than that,” he repeated, speaking this time. He didn’t know this girl, but she was above whatever had broken her down like this. She was watching him intently, maybe waiting for something. Mark just relaxed his spine and finally smiled her across the grass. 

The girl bit her lip. The gloss she was wearing was a light pink that made her face seem softer. “You’ll feel better when you wake up,” she said, echoing a line of the song back to Mark. “Do you think that’s always true?”

“It is if you let yourself believe it,” Mark replied. 

She paused. “I’m Amy.”

“Mark,” he replied. “I’m sorry. About whatever happened.”

Amy shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured. “Wasn’t anyone’s. It doesn’t really, matter, I guess, except it really did.” She sighed, seeming frustrated. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually like to cry in public— don’t like to cry at all— but I didn’t want to see my asshole roommate.” Amy made a face and Mark liked the way it scrunched up her nose. “She can be really mean when she thinks her problems are more important than mine.”

“What happened?” Mark asked. “If you don’t mind telling me.”

She shook her head again, looking to the guitar Mark was holding. “What song was that?”

“ _Wake Up,_ by this Irish guy named EDEN,” Mark told her. He set the guitar down in between them so she could get a better look at all the drawings. “He’s a super talented guy, writes everything himself. I like to think that song represents that hardships you come across in life, and how even though a problem can seem all consuming at first, it becomes nothing in the face of how a person can make it all seem worth it.”

“How idealistic,” she said, with no criticism. “Who drew all of this?”

Mark shrugged. “Some of them have names, and some of them don’t. Random strangers who come by and like the music. I play out here all the time.”

“I know,” Amy replied. “I’ve seen you.”

Mark frowned. “Funny. I could’ve sworn I would’ve remembered someone like you.”

Amy snorted and rolled her eyes. “Oh, so is that what this was? You coming over to flirt with the mopey girl, crying under a tree? Real anime of you.”

“How could I have planned to do that when you were hiding your face?” Mark reminded her. “I honestly just hated hearing you cry, and there was really only one thing I could do to try and fix that. I’m not, like, Ed Sheeran or anything, but I try to do my best.” He smiled again. “I just figured that if I could do anything to help, I should. It’s kinda how I do things.”

“Wow. Real knight in shining armor of you.”

“Armor?” Mark scoffed and raised his arms, flexing. “Why would I ever hide these guns from the sun? Their glory needs to be seen by all.” He made a show of kissing each bicep, making an outright fool of himself to make her giggle. He basked in the sound and dropped his arms, smiling into the grass now. “I don’t want you to think I have expectations or anything,” he said. “I didn’t know you were pretty until I was here.”

“I guess it’s the thought that counts,” Amy said with a smirk. Her eyes were still puffy and red, but the tears were long gone. “Not like you’d be any threat to me. I’ll bet those muscles are fake. Silicon and wax, right?”

“Oh, so fake,” Mark agreed. “Unlike my boobs.”

“I could tell,” she hummed, gesturing to Mark’s chest. “That shirt’s so tight. Starving student, right? Can’t even afford clothes that fit.”

“Well, us engineers aren’t very good at clothes in the first place,” Mark told her with a grin. Talking to Amy was a lot more fun than he’d expected. “We see high-end fashion and hunch away like vampires in the sun. Is that hissing from us or our endless inventions created from our need to cut corners?”

“I didn’t think engineers were inventors,” Amy said.

“You wouldn’t think that, until you met my friend Jack,” Mark said. “He builds robots out of paperclips in two hours. He programs them to dance.”

“Is he a mad scientist?”

“Close. He’s got a beard.”

“All criteria has been met.”

They trailed off, still smiling at one another like strangers did when they didn’t know what to say next. Mark watched her eyes drift back to the guitar, then to Mark’s face again. He watched her hesitate. 

“It’s my dog,” she said. 

“What happened?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, he was just old. Best dog I’ve ever had, though. His name’s Buddy. We got him in a shelter. He was abused pretty badly by his previous owners. He was scared of men and old people. He didn’t like doing a lot, but he loved walks and he was a pretty strong swimmer. We’ve had him for six years.” She bit her lip.

“I knew he was going to, to leave us soon, but I thought I had time. My parents had agreed we’d wait until the time was right, and then give me time to come home. But this morning, my parents said that he started bleeding from his ears. They took him to the vet and the vet said there was nothing they could do. They said Buddy was in pain, so…”

Amy sniffled. Mark scooched across the grass, getting closer. Their knees touched, the guitar in their laps between them, and Amy reached out to carefully brush her fingers over the strings. 

“My parents called me in the middle of class,” she continued, her voice trembling. “FaceTime. They didn’t have time to wait and were putting Buddy down. It was a mercy, I-I know, but I’d wanted to be with him more than anything.” She started crying hard again, little sobs interrupting her ragged breaths. “He was old, you know? And halfway deaf. He couldn’t even hear me over the phone. I hate it, because he was _my dog._ I picked him out, I took him on walks, I fed him. And yet I wasn’t there for him in the end, and it tears me apart.” 

She broke down, face in her hands. A stray tear landed on the wood of Mark’s guitar, but nothing smeared. That was the nice thing about permanent markers. Even the worst of pains couldn’t distort the image existing. Mark reached out a rested a hand on her shoulder. He knew what it was like to mourn better than most.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice aching with sincerity. “No matter what, your dog knew you loved him. Maybe he didn’t understand why you would leave, but he knew it anyways. That’s the great thing about dogs, you know? They’re more forgiving than people. And so much more loving.”

She kept crying, but nodded, leaning into Mark’s hand like she couldn’t carry her own weight. Mark let her do what she needed to do. Sometimes people just needed to cry and know that they wouldn’t be alone at the end of it. He sat with her under that tree for a long time. Mark missed his last class of the day. He didn’t really care, because the girl in front of him was way more important. People mattered more than grades.

After a long time, she finally sat up straight and gave him a tremulous smile. “Think there’s an empty spot on that guitar for me?” she asked. Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out that sharpie, handing it over wordlessly. She bent over the guitar, drawing. When she came back up, Mark’s heart clenched. 

The sweet face of a loving dog with floppy ears and a big tongue was drawn just below the pick guard. Above the dog’s head was the name “Buddy” with hearts on either side. At the bottom, Amy had written a simple “thank you.” Amy capped the pen and handed it back. “I, uh, I think I just missed my exon course,” she said. 

“I’m definitely not making it to trig,” Mark said with a chuckle.

She looked up at him with big, hopeful eyes. “Do you… I mean, you wanna get some coffee? I know this place just outside of campus. They bake a really mean muffin. And they, they do this thing. If you bring in a picture of a pet you’ve lot, they’ll put it on their wall. The whole store is covered. I wanted to put Buddy up there, but I’d rather not do it alone.”

Mark stood, slinging the guitar over his shoulder and offering her a hand. “I would love to be there,” he said. She quickly gathered up her books and took his hand.

“It’s funny,” she said as they walked back to get Mark’s things before they left. “I didn’t really think anything good could come out of losing him.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her heard, and a faint blush that matcher her lip gloss came to her cheeks. “Thanks for caring more about me being sad than pretty. It means a lot.”

“Gotta do something good in the world for a change, right?” Mark grinned as he packed up his guitar. “Who else is gonna do it?”

As they walked to the coffee shop, their fingertips brushed before twining together. His calluses against her soft skin felt more like sound than his own music.

. . .

_“Be helpful. When you see a person without a smile, give them yours.” — Zig Ziglar_


End file.
